Electric Vehicles

[embee]

Originally Posted by Bibio

..... you will then get vandalised charging points etc.etc. its the UK not Canada.
....are the charge cable/handles going to be lockable?

That's the stuff which has gone through my mind. How are the scallies going to vandalise stuff? Who's going to be the first to try cutting through a charging cable just to see what happens? Imagine the yoofs running down the street after a Friday night unplugging all the cars. Superglue in the sockets. I'm sure someone will come up with a way to clone a car's signature to "steal" electricity and put it on your account. Think about the keyless entry scammers stealing Mercs and Audis with a laptop and some far eastern software. Think about the scumbags sawing catalysts off cars in a few seconds using cordless tools.
If something can be vandalised/stolen, it will be. The manufacturers must think like the lowlife to protect stuff, but even then some of them will be one step ahead ......

[DJ123]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

The current CCS infrastructure far outweighs the Tesla super charging infrastructure. The early ecotricity chargers are very unreliable and because they are mainly at motorway services they get bad press. Even here in Wales I have a rapid charger just 10 miles away. My nearest Tesla charger is 40 miles away by the M6.

The point is, in an electric vehicle change your thinking and don't drive it like a fossil car. It's like your phone, charge overnight and always have enough charge for the day. It's only occasionally you need to charge out and about and you can plan that.

Everyone has a car for different uses. I have a larger BMW Touring because most of my driving is long distance, some hundreds of miles. Some at short notice, some planned ahead of time.
A car is a tool, it needs to do the purpose it is designed for/the reason i have purchased it.
No Electric car (currently) can compete with my 3L Diesel on a journey to Scotland. I can do it in circa 5 hours, on 2/3 of a tank of fuel. The weak spot in the car is me, i'm the only reason i need to stop. An Electric vehicle will need a charge half way and then again at the end. Which would add a minimum of 2 hours to the journey - each way. So on a 10 hour trip for ICE, it would be at least 14 hours in an EV.
An EV needs to be able to replace the ICE and do it in a way which enhances the experience in a seamless manner. I've never gone to a petrol station and found them all out of order, or not working. I've never not thought about using the AC/Heating/Wipers/Seat heating in my car incase i effect the range of my vehicles fuel tank.
I'm all for EV's, when they are able to compete with replacing an ICE on their capabilities (even if the infrastructure was complete).

[timwilky]

Ok, I know I am late to the debate, so my 10 pence worth of opinion.


The part everyone misses. yes many can charge over night, but do people do the total load calculation. Estates locally are now 5-800 houses, 2-3 cars each all needing to charge. The electricity distribution infrastructure just isn't upto it. One of my local clowncils had to abandon their new all electric vehicle policy when they discovered they could not install charger capacity for all their proposed vehicles in the works compound. The feed was not sufficient and several hundred thousand to run new cables.

The terraced street where my daughter lives built about 1850 got electricity about 1930. When she moved in 18 months ago she had problems and her electrician had to call in the local electricity board as that 1930 infrastructure was only delivering about 190v. they had to recable to the mains fuse digging up the street and some of her floor. I would guess 80% of the local infrastructure where she lives is out of spec.
She currently has a Ford Kuga and her partner a Nissan Navara. Her daily commute is 120 miles. His can be 50-500 miles depending where he is visiting that day. They struggle to get one vehicle outside the house, 2 would be a miracle so little chance of home charging. Everyone on their street plugged in asking to overload the old infrastructure.

I am no longer the road warrior I was leaving home at 5am and returning at 9pm. But for those that are having to stop for a couple of hours to recharge is going to add up. putting them over their working hours and requiring overnight stops.

I have worked with Hydrogen fuel cells a couple of years ago. I see hydrogen as the way forward. although not efficient excess renewable could drive hydrogen production. And as far renewable why not more use of tidal. That is at least predictable and guaranteed! I saw 1 MW tidal in operation and plans to develop test farms to understand the disruption caused but all seems abandoned.

[Bibio]

politicians are being advised by people with vested interest.

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by embee

If something can be vandalised/stolen, it will be. The manufacturers must think like the lowlife to protect stuff, but even then some of them will be one step ahead ......

Correct, the scallies will be nicking the copper charging leads and uprooting the chargers, and before you know it they will be in a container headfing for sale in other countries. The only reason petrol pumps don't get nicked and vandalised is that they are on secure sites, many running 24/7 and they all have CCTV, try putting CCTV on every charging point in UK, especially when they start using lamp post chargers. Not to mention a trade in stolen charging card details to get power on somebody elses account...

[embee]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

...We are lucky in UK to get 80 or 100 amp supply to our houses ( at least the more modern ones ) I read that in Spain they are sometimes lucky to get 13 amps.....

In France you pay for a tariff according to what max power/current you want, the lower the cheaper. I guess modern houses tend to be higher, but it certainly wasn't uncommon back in the day for the supply to be 3kW/13A.

It is a bit of a reality check to consider what the effective equivalent "power" is for refuelling with petrol or diesel. A typical forecourt petrol pump delivery is around 30 or 40 lt/min (commercials a bit more). Petrol contains around 43MJ/kg, which is a bit over 30MJ/litre round figures. So at 35 lt/min and 30MJ/lt that's over 1000MJ/min, or 16MJ/sec (=16MW or 16,000kW)
A petrol engine might average out at around 25% thermal efficiency, so taking that into account to compare fairly with a BEV, you'd still be looking at about 4MW (4,000kW) to recharge a BEV at the same "effective" rate as refuelling a petrol car. That's never going to happen.
I don't know what the maximum realistic charge rate could be for a BEV in the future, battery/charging technology permitting, but if it ever got anywhere near that I'd be extremely surprised.
It does put charging rates into perspective. There's a lot of energy in petrol.

[DJ123]

Originally Posted by embee

In France you pay for a tariff according to what max power/current you want, the lower the cheaper. I guess modern houses tend to be higher, but it certainly wasn't uncommon back in the day for the supply to be 3kW/13A.

It is a bit of a reality check to consider what the effective equivalent "power" is for refuelling with petrol or diesel. A typical forecourt petrol pump delivery is around 30 or 40 lt/min (commercials a bit more). Petrol contains around 43MJ/kg, which is a bit over 30MJ/litre round figures. So at 35 lt/min and 30MJ/lt that's over 1000MJ/min, or 16MJ/sec (=16MW or 16,000kW)
A petrol engine might average out at around 25% thermal efficiency, so taking that into account to compare fairly with a BEV, you'd still be looking at about 4MW (4,000kW) to recharge a BEV at the same "effective" rate as refuelling a petrol car. That's never going to happen.
I don't know what the maximum realistic charge rate could be for a BEV in the future, battery/charging technology permitting, but if it ever got anywhere near that I'd be extremely surprised.
It does put charging rates into perspective. There's a lot of energy in petrol.

If you watch a video on the Harrys Garage YT channel about the Porsche Taycan, he goes to charge it at a 'pay at pump' electric charger. I don't know the day or time of day he charges it but the cost was 10p a mile (25 miles added, at a cost of £2.50). Which is the rough equivalent cost of an ICE that does circa 50MPG. Most modern cars are not far off that in the equivalent combustion fuel cost.

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by timwilky

The part everyone misses. yes many can charge over night, but do people do the total load calculation. Estates locally are now 5-800 houses, 2-3 cars each all needing to charge. The electricity distribution infrastructure just isn't up to it.

I tend to agree. Although I would expect most vehicles to only need charging once or twice a week. (12000 miles/year = approx. 230 miles/week, and 200-250 miles is a typical quoted car range per charge.)

Originally Posted by SV650rules

We are lucky in UK to get 80 or 100 amp supply to our houses ( at least the more modern ones ) I read that in Spain they are sometimes lucky to get 13 amps.....

Though just hope everyone doesn't try to pull to 80-100A at once! There's a big difference between peak capacity and average demand and you may be surprised to learn how little you use on average.

Originally Posted by embee

... but it certainly wasn't uncommon back in the day for the supply to be 3kW/13A.

It's been a while but I used to work for a distribution company. We used to have a simple rule of thumb of 1.5kW per house when initially doing cable sizing calculations for overlaying old knackered or inadequate mains (sometimes down to 1kW if mains gas was available - netting off heating/cooking load you see). The effects of demand factor and diversity are very real. Very rarely did the fault teams get called out for distributor fuses at substations or feeder pillars blowing due to 'natural' overload from cumulative draw.

Compare it to your own bill: 1kW = approx. 4.3A at 230V - At 24/7 continuous average that's probably £100-120 per month which I think is a sizeable domestic bill for electricity.

By my calculation, based on a quick google search, a Tesla electric car battery is around 80-100kWh, so that's c. 8-10kW power demand required for a full overnight charge (keeping maths simple, assuming 10 hours duration). Add that up for multiple vehicles and there is a huge demand, especially when you compare to current typical average levels. If each vehicle is broadly equivalent to 3-4 houses, then it becomes clear that many concurrent vehicle charging loads of that or more do present a big problem for electricity supply industry at local distribution level.

[ethariel]

Kent have just set up a services framework for the installation of new EV charging points to cover 156 sites - no idea as to how many charging points per site but time will tell.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by DJ123

The weak spot in the car is me, i'm the only reason i need to stop. An Electric vehicle will need a charge half way and then again at the end. Which would add a minimum of 2 hours to the journey - each way. So on a 10 hour trip for ICE, it would be at least 14 hours in an EV.

I completely take your points on EVs needing to take on ICE vehicles on a level playing field. However, your point above about the human being the weak link is the reason some EVs can compete with ICE over a long distance. Charge your car when you need a pee/food/poo break. If leaving home with a full charge, the best long distance EV will go 4 hours on a motorway. Charge at a very fast charger while you go pee and the car will gain 200+ miles. As you pointed out, you bought your 5 series Beemer to do distances, so a Tesla is a fair comparison (longest range) - the Model S can do 400 miles on a charge (claimed) and will put 200 miles of range on in a 30 minute charge at the fastest chargers. A more affordable option, the ID.3 will do a claimed 340 miles on a charge and will put 160 miles in a 30 minute charge the fastest chargers.

I would venture a pee stop from walking from the car, doing it, washing hands etc, walking back is 15-20 minutes? Not there yet, but getting there.

I realise that the long range models tend to be the luxury vehicles and for that reason very expensive, but it does show what is possible. Even if they are not affordable for most of us.